


Marigold and Willow

by cadastre



Series: The Flowers of April [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Siblings, Siblings, Survivor Guilt, Whump, World War I, non-graphic references to violence/death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29624004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadastre/pseuds/cadastre
Summary: Tom Blake survives his mission, and William Schofield does not. Joseph Blake is left to pick up the pieces.
Series: The Flowers of April [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194977
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	Marigold and Willow

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from @Ealasaid. Thank you for the inspiration, Ealasaid!!! <3
> 
> Un-beta'd; all errors are my own.

_It’s Tom_ , Joe thinks in wonder. _It’s Tom. He’s here._

As Tom walks towards him, everything about him says that he’s had a brutal journey to get there. He has lost his helmet, his kit, his rifle, and his posture speaks to utter exhaustion. Joe doesn’t question it, though, just runs the few steps between them and pulls his brother into his arms.

“How?” Joe asks as confusion and delight war within him. “Why are you here?” But his questions go unanswered as Tom collapses against him.

 _What has happened?_ he wonders as Tom sobs against his shoulder, as he makes quiet noises of comfort just like he used to do when Tom had a nightmare after their father died. He doesn’t bother trying to estimate how long he holds Tom like that: it could be minutes or hours. Eventually Tom goes slack in his grasp and his breaths even out.

“C’mon, Tom,” Joe says softly, trying to tug Tom up with him. “Let’s get you to the medical tent.”

“‘m fine,” Tom murmurs, wipes his eyes with a filthy sleeve. “I’m not hurt.”

“Then we need to get some food in you.” Joe isn’t sure what, but it’s clear that something is wrong. “Let’s get you some tea and you can tell me what happened.”

He can tell that Tom wants to object, but he doesn’t give him the option before shepherding him to the mess tent and grabbing them some rations. He takes the opportunity to have a quick word with his captain to explain the situation, before looking around and finding his brother missing.

When he eventually relocates him, Tom is sitting by a tree not far from the medical station, the last remaining one of a long-since bombed-out windbreak. He has his knees drawn up and his head in hands. There's a tobacco tin resting by one thigh ( _odd: as far as Joe is aware Tom doesn’t smoke_ ).

He carefully puts the food down and sits by his brother.

“What’s wrong?”

“He wasn’t supposed to die,” Tom chokes out. “The man they sent with me, Scho—William Schofield—he wasn’t supposed to die.” _Oh no,_ Joe thinks helplessly. _Oh no._

“Tell me what’s happened, Tom. All of it.”

Tears are rolling freely down Tom’s cheeks.

“General Erinmore sent me and Scho on a mission. We had to stop the attack today.”

“The attack?” Joe is baffled: they were barely meeting any resistance, and Erinmore sent his brother to call it off?

“It was a trap. The Boche lines were miles deep; everyone was going to die. He—he knew—Erinmore knew you were here. He told me that there were sixteen hundred lives in my hands and—” Tom’s body goes tense, and he gasps several sobs and tightens his fingers in his hair. “—yours among them.”

Joe’s heart goes cold.

 _They sent my brother out on a mission he couldn’t fail_ , he thinks blankly through the shock of it. _Those bloody brass hats sent my brother on a suicide mission that he couldn’t refuse._

But Tom doesn’t seem to have noticed his dismay, and is continuing with his story. Joe files his horror and rage away for another day, for a night of drinking with Richards when no one will be there to report him for the invective that is burning against the back of his throat.

“We made it across the lines. There was a booby trap that almost got us, but we made it. We were at a farm on the way to Ecoust when a German plane came down. I…I made Scho help me get the pilot out.” Joe wants to laugh, because _of course_ his brother would want to save some German pilot that crashed in front of him, but the tears that are streaming down Tom’s face bring him back to the present. “He was getting water when the pilot tried to off me. Scho got the pilot, but the pilot had a pistol and shot Scho before he died.”

Joe has seen the same look that is in Tom’s eyes in those of countless other men, and his stomach drops. He knows all too well that guilt, that haunted look. He knows what he has to say, and he also knows with absolute certainty that it will not help one bit. He feels helpless in the face of this, can only think, _Please, not this. Don’t make Tom carry this burden._

“It’s not your fault,” Joe says as softly as he can. “You tried to help him. You couldn’t have known he’d do that.”

“I picked Scho for the mission.” The look on Tom’s face says the memory is torturing him. Joe wishes he could take the guilt from his brother, hold it for him and let him rest. He is clearly at the point of collapse, is coming apart at the seams. “They told me to pick a man. I thought it would just be helping with setting up billets or something. I’m the reason he was there at all.”

Tom dissolves back into tears, and Joe pulls him against his chest, cradles him as best he can as they sit against the tree in a battlefield so very far from home.

“You made it,” Joe finally says. “You saved me, Tom. Mum’ll never let you forget it. She’ll never let _me_ forget it.”

Tom lets out a strangled little laugh that sounds more like a sob before picking the tobacco tin back up.

“It should’ve been me, though. I was the one who wanted to save the pilot. And Scho, he has—he had a wife and two daughters. He was brave and smart and, and handsome. He wasn’t supposed to die. It should’ve been me.” And then, quieter, as if with a complete lack of comprehension, he repeats, “It should’ve been me.”

“That’s not how it works,” Joe says gently, shaking Tom’s shoulders lightly. “That’s never how it works. Schofield’s number came up, that’s all. If it wasn’t yesterday it might have been tomorrow.”

 _To Hell with him. I would trade a hundred William Schofields to have you here safe with me_ , Joe doesn’t say.

They sit like that as the sun traverses the sky, as men move purposefully along the periphery of the field in the distance. The sounds of pain by those dying and merriment by those grateful to be alive filter across the grass, and Joe ignores all of it in favor of softly stroking Tom’s hair as his brother leans against him. He’s almost convinced that Tom has drifted off, when his muffled voice comes from Joe’s shoulder.

“Myrtle’s having puppies.”

“What?”

“Myrtle’s having puppies. I got a letter from mum just before we had to scarper over here.” Tom looks up a Joe with eyes red and swollen from tears, but a shaky smile is visible beneath. “We’ll have to think up names and send them to her. She’ll like hearing from us both.”

Joe smiles back, nods. Their mother _will_ like hearing from both of them; they’ll just have to be judicious about what they share about Tom’s mission if they don’t want her to have a coronary as a result.

Tom’s face stills, and his grin falters. Joe braces himself for whatever words his brother is about to say.

“I have to write to Scho’s wife. He asked me to, when he was…when we were at the farmhouse, after. Will you—will you help me?”

A year ago, Joe supposes he would have been daunted by the request. But as a lieutenant he’s gotten all too much practice writing that same letter— _it is always the same letter_ , he allows himself to think bitterly, _always an enumeration of a soldier’s brave acts and one’s regrets about his death_ —for it to be anything but a passing hesitation that he feels now.

“Of course,” he says, voice low. “Of course I’ll help you.”

Tom nods, settles his head back against Joe’s shoulder. Joe contemplates trying to get Tom to eat something, but before he can he finds that Tom’s breathing has steadied into a rhythm, that he’s gone slack, and is fast asleep.

So instead Joe contents himself with sitting there, Tom cradled against his side, watching as men file past their field, not letting himself think about anything but the weight against his side and the knowledge that his brother is safe, _is safe_.


End file.
